2Today’s Astana began life in 1830 as a Cossack fortress looming over the Ishim River. By the end of that century, the outpost had grown into a bustling trading town, spiked with the spires of three Orthodox churches.

3During the Soviet era, the town (pictured in 1979) was chosen as one of the centers for an ill-fated project to transform the steppes of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic into a sea of wheat.

4Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in a wheat field near today’s Astana in 1964. The town at the time was named Tselinograd, based on the Russian word “tselina,” meaning “virgin lands.”